Underwear that protects its wearer from sexual abuse? Some engineers in India have created a prototype undergarment they think will fill the bill with built-in shock-protection system, GPS, and automated text alerts to the police in case of emergency. But can it go in the tumble dryer?

A group of engineering students in India have invented anti-rape underwear — a novel wearable device that they claim will prevent rape and other sexual offenses.

The protective panties are purportedly built to deliver up to 82 electric shocks to a would-be offender when pressure sensors on the item detect unwanted force.

The technology-assisted undergarment, aptly named Society Harnessing Equipment (SHE), can also alert police, or family or friends, through a built-in GPS system, to any potential sexual offense that would allow the would-be victim to be easily located.

"The lingerie with global positioning system, global system for mobile communications and also pressure sensors is capable of sending shock waves of 3,800 kV as well as alerts to parents and police," Manisha Mohan, who helped develop the product, told The Times of India.

The device's inventors, from left to right: Manisha Mohan, Rimpi Tripathy and Niladri Basu. Tripathy and Basu are students of Instrumentation and Control Engineering and Mohan is an Aeronautical Engineering student.

(Techpedia.in)

“A person trying to molest a girl will get the shock of his life the moment pressure sensors get activated, and the GPS and GSM modules would send an SMS (to the Indian emergency number) as well as to parents of the girl," Mohan added.

Mohan, an engineering student at SRM University in Chennai, built a prototype of the underwear with her two colleagues, Rimpi Tripathi and Neeladri Basu Pal.

They are hoping to rollout commercial production of the device later this month, The Times reported.

Three Indian engineering students have invented a device that they hope will protect women in their country from sexual assault: anti-rape lingerie that emits powerful shocks and alerts police and the woman's family if she is attacked.

(Techpedia.in)

The device’s conception comes as India fights a surge in sexual violence against women, highlighted by the fatal December gang rape and beating of a 23-year-old physiotherapy student

The horrifying case has generated widespread anger about the Indian government's inability to prevent violence against women and has dented the country’s profitable tourism industry.

In the three months since that attack, the number of foreigners traveling to India has dropped by 25%, according to a recent study. The number of female tourists has dropped by 35%, the study claimed.